Jesters
by WhatsWithLuna3
Summary: War was a laughing lady but they were both the butts of the joke. She did not discriminate. They were all the jesters. Each and every one of them. War AU oneshot.


slight AU if you want it to be. inspired by _Room Serviced_ by pir8fancier on Archive of Our Own.

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 _Hell is other people_. What did that have to do with anything? Hell was anything you make of it. Hell can be other people, hell can be your in-laws, hell can be a nursing home after your children forget about you and time becomes your only companion. Yet _Hell is other people_ was carved into her headboard, big, angry white letters against the light wood that stood out even if you weren't looking at it. _Hell is other people_ was the inscription of the room, a Dante-esque invitation, metallic letters adorning a gate to torture. She thought, if anything the translation is incorrect. It would have to be _Hell, it's other people._ Which was very different to what the previous occupant carved into the headboard, presumably deep in the night, with nothing to guide him but the lone light on his nightstand and the scratching of his pocketknife against old, soft wood. She liked to think about the circumstances of his carving, the motive of his action, the epiphany behind it. She did not like to think of the meaning behind it, behind the mistranslation. _Hell is other people_ on the headboard is the antithesis of a drunken one-night stand, or perhaps the faithful companion. Perhaps it is the motivation behind it, or the discouragement. She did not know.

And yet how ironic it was.

She waited for the knock on the door that would inevitably come. She had, after all, invited him. He had not asked her to come. He had not begged her permission. He didn't beg. She had asked him. Not begged. She didn't beg. She had politely asked him for a favor. He had obliged. They had set a time. She was punctual. He was not. But she knew he was coming. He had to. He didn't break promises. So she waited. The room was dark and empty, save for the standard pieces of furniture. The rickety bed, the desk missing a leg, the redundant wardrobe. No one used the wardrobe. No one came here spent more than one night. What a useless piece of wood. It took up space and nothing more. But she supposed it gave the room a sense of homeliness, the opposite of the headboard broken in and soiled by incorrect existentialist French quotes. She supposed it was a painful reminder of the outside world where people had uses for wardrobes. She couldn't remember the last time she had needed a wardrobe. Nowadays she had all her clothes stuffed in her small bag that was bigger on the inside and all she needed was her wand to find the shirt or pair of socks she needed. She hadn't changed her bra in weeks. She didn't even have a second bra. It had burned down along with her house. Ashes to ashes.

Waiting for him brought her to life, if only slightly. She knew this because she had crumpled a bit of the carpet to a heap with her feet. Crumpling the carpet under her feet was a tick her mother had always hated of her. It ruined the décor and the cleanliness of their surroundings. It was un lady-like, her mother said. But war was a laughing lady, she knew, and her tick was playing along with the joke. It was a small gesture, yet through it she regained some of her humanity. Her heart bubbled through it. War was a laughing lady and her heart giggled along.

The knock frightened her. She could see her heart pulsating against her chest. It was physically pushing against her body. Her jumper thumped along with it. She resolved not to stand up; it would have given away her jelly legs, something he did not have to see. Instead, she murmured a spell and with a flick of her wand the door clicked open. He pushed it open and stepped into the room.

His eyes did not fall on her. He knew she was in there. In an unfamiliar situation, your eyes find the thing that stands out. It is redundant to look at things you know are supposed to be there. Only lovers look for each other in unfamiliar settings, find solace in each other's confusion, and they were far from that. His eyes did not even spare her the time of day. They leapt from the grimy window facing a back alley where she was sure muggings and rapes were the order of the day, to the three-legged desk, to the wardrobe holed and nibbled at by woodworms. She watched him. This wasn't an unfamiliar setting to her anymore. He wasn't solace to her but he was something else, something the headboard warned about.

' _Hell is other people_ ,' he said slowly. He was not looking at the headboard. He was looking at her.

'So it would seem,' she replied, straightening the carpet beneath her feet and then re-crumpling it.

'The translation is problematic.' He moved fluidly, with little to no pauses, like he knew exactly what he was doing. And in a way, perhaps he did. He closed the door behind him with another _click_ and slowly came to stand near the bed, where she sat, her legs crossed and hands on her lap, back straight and face clean. He was still looking at her. She was still looking at him. They met each other halfway and neither looked away. They were anchored in each other's eyes. They did not stray to the lines around their mouths and base of their noses. He did not look at the folds that ironed out when she screamed. She did not look at the dark smudges under his eyes that held in them every hour and every minute he was not at peace. They did not look at the scars and bruises and dirtiness and helplessness of their lives, the marks of battle, the blows of joke after joke of that laughing lady that was war. They kept their gazes strictly on each other's eyes and that was all. There was nothing in between them. Nothing they could afford to lose.

'Hell, it's other people,' she offered, knowing full and well that is what he meant as well.

'That poor sod didn't know what he was writing.' He jutted his chin in the direction of the angry white-hot words.

'I don't blame him. Philosophy is an escape.'

'Existentialism is a trap.'

'Maybe he hated both.'

'Why's that?' Now he was by her. Entirely. He stood in front of her. His knees by her abdomen. His hands could have pulled her hair out and she would have let him. Their eyes never left the other's.

'They each try to give answers to questions we can't help but ask,' she replied. 'Maybe he grew tired of them and gave his own answer. His own two cents.'

'Or he was showing off,' he said. He broke through her legs so that he stood between them. There was no way out now. She locked him in. Before she could stop herself, she wrapped her hands around his thighs. Gently. Like she was trying him out. The cotton under her skin felt relaxing. It was the same feeling looking at the wardrobe gave her. Salvation sped through her fingers. She controlled her heart. The pulse she suppressed raced up to her eyes. She felt them throb under her lids.

'To whom?' she asked.

'Anyone who would listen.' Their position was odd. He, standing. She, holding onto him. It felt reversed. He towered over her and yet he waited for her cue. She was smaller, more petite, demurer. She did not need to wait. She had him in her hands. She had, after all, invited him.

So she stood up. She pulled her legs back and he instinctively took a step back and now they stood face to face. He looked down at her. She looked up at him. War was a laughing lady but they were both the butts of the joke. She did not discriminate. They were all the jesters. Each and every one of them.

She brought her hands tentatively up to his arms. He replied by placing his hands on her waist. They were still watching each other. There was nowhere else to look now.

'Hell is what you make of it,' she said.

'Hell is whatever the fuck Sartre meant,' he replied.

'Why did you come?' It might have been ridiculous to ask that, because she knew he kept his promises, but it was a curiosity she could not shake. If hell is other people why did he show up?

'Why were you waiting?' he countered. He pulled her closer. Their breaths mingled. She hated smelling other people's breath. It was an agonizing reminder that other people may have felt the same way about her.

'War is a laughing lady,' she recited, tilting her face up, exposing herself. 'But she cannot predict her jesters.'

'And this is your way of throwing her off?' He lowered his face. His lips hovered over her nose. She felt them lowering.

'Something like that.'

'Granger,' he greeted lowly. His lips over hers. Her lips under his. Waiting. Waiting.

'Malfoy,' she said back.

War sat back and laughed. She laughed until their lips met and their breaths mingled and Sartre's hell was blocked out. Then she stopped. The laughing lady watched as the two jesters disproved Sartre's theory, and waited for the joke to come.

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"Hell is other people" (original: " _l'enfer, c'est les autres_ ") is a line taken from Jean-Paul Sartre's play _No Exit_ , published in 1944.

"War was a laughing lady" is a line given to me by a prompt generator, however if anyone knows where it originally comes from (if it comes from anywhere originally), please let me know!

reviews are always appreciated! xx WhatsWithLuna3


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